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Location Based Services
| Applications | |
|---|---|
| Title | Location Based Services |
| Author(s) | GMV. |
| Level | Basic |
| Year of Publication | 2011 |
Location Based Services (LBS) include applications that depend on the user location to provide a service/information that is relevant to the user at that location.
LBS normally use mobile devices with positioning ability to provide the service or information to the user. LBS can be used for personal or professional purposes although most of the services covered here are for personal use since professional services will be covered in other sections[1].
History of Location Based Services
Location based Services resulted from the convergence of 3 technologies in one device: mobile internet access, positioning and rich user interfaces. Until the late 1990's the available mobile devices mostly supported only voice and SMS and had few user interface capabilities. Although these technologies could teoretically already support very crude location based services (using SMS and GSM based localization), only after the introduction of WAP and internet access in mobile phones there is news of the first generally available location based services.
The 1999's Palm VII is considered the first LBS capable mobile device although the LBS applications it provided relied on zip code information to have the user positioning[1].
Also in 1999, WAP enabled phones start to appear on the market providing internet access and a richer user interface than what was previously available[2].
The service FriendZone is considered the first LBS service to be offered by a mobile phone operator in May 2001 after a preliminary trial that started in January 2001.
Initially the location was provided by GSM localization techniques
Location based Information Streams
Tourist Information
Games
Carpooling and Transport in Demand
Notes